


The Hardest Mission

by veeagainst



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, First War with Voldemort, M/M, Second War with Voldemort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 20:03:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veeagainst/pseuds/veeagainst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus contemplates going on a mission to the werewolves. Set first during the first war with Voldemort, then during Half-Blood Prince.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hardest Mission

Sirius walked home rather than Apparate because he didn’t want to watch Remus packing. He went out of his way to travel down the tree-lined avenues of Hyde Park, shrouded in the fog rising from the grass and the clinging cold of January’s early dusk. There was no sunset, only a darkening of the sky’s grey gradient, and Sirius’s spirits sank with the sun, unseen by the other travellers on the lonely avenue. 

  
He found Remus standing in their bedroom, an ancient brown leather bag open and empty on the mattress. Remus had cleared away the thick winter blanket so that the bag seemed to be sinking into a nest of sheets. When Sirius stepped into the room, he turned and said helplessly, “I don’t know what to pack.”  
  
“How long will you be gone?” Sirius asked, slinging off his robe and hanging it on the doorknob. “If it’s more than a week, you should just take my trunk. Don’t bother with that bag.” He gave it a disdainful look. “The bottom will fall out if you try to pick it up, at any rate.”  
  
Remus ignored that last and shook his head. “It’s an open-ended assignment. I have to be gone for however long it will take.” He ran a hand through his hair, already unkempt from this nervous habit, and shook his head again. “I don’t know what to expect.” His voice shook as he added, “I might be gone for a month, maybe more.”  
  
The last sentence hit Sirius like a punch to the stomach. He focused on Remus. He had his hands clenched together and a tense look on his face. “Didn’t Dumbledore brief you?” he asked wearily, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I know you can’t tell me details, but whenever I have to travel for the Order, he gives me some idea, at least.”  
  
“That’s the thing,” Remus said. “He doesn’t know what to expect, either.” He hesitated, then added, “They won’t talk to him.”  
  
Sirius wished that his walk home had taken a hundred years. “Who won’t?”  
  
Remus hesitated again. “We’re not supposed to tell each other the details in case…”  
  
“Yes, yes,” Sirius said impatiently. “In case one of us is captured and tortured for information.”  
  
Remus winced. “So clinical, Padfoot,” he murmured.  
  
“That’s how Dumbledore puts it.”  
  
“I know,” Remus said quickly. “He… he did give me a bit of a briefing, but for the most part he left it to my imagination.”  
  
Sirius put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Just that sentence alone would keep him awake for a week. “So who won’t talk to him?”  
  
He felt the bed sink down beside him, and Remus’s hands settled onto his shoulders. “Did you have a bad day?”  
  
Sirius shrugged. “Been thinking about you leaving tonight.”  
  
Remus sighed, his breath warm against the back of Sirius’s neck. “We should be better at this.”  
  
Sirius took one hand away from his face and laid it over top of one of Remus’s. “It’s just so hard with you.” Remus didn’t say anything, and Sirius elaborated to fill the silence. “I mean, do you think James and Lily feel this way?”  
  
“Yes,” Remus said softly, as if he sensed that Sirius needed him to talk. “Except they don’t have to leave each other all that much, anymore, now that they’ve got Harry.” He tapped the fingers of his free hand against Sirius’s collarbone and added, “Dumbledore thinks they should be together.”  
  
Sirius nodded, his eyes closed, trying to hold onto the feeling of Remus’s hands and breath. “A month or more?”  
  
“It’s the werewolves,” Remus said quickly. “They won’t speak to Dumbledore, but we know that they’re allied with Voldemort.”  
  
“What’s his name, Grey…”  
  
“Fenrir Greyback.”  
  
“Right, he’s their leader, right?”  
  
“Think so.”  
  
“The nutter who bites kids, right?”  
  
“Right.”  
  
Sirius sat up abruptly. “What does Dumbledore want you to do with his lot?”  
  
“Go to them, spy on them. I suggested that I try to win them over to our side, but he seemed to think that was a lost cause.” Remus took his hands away from Sirius and clenched them together in his lap. “So I have to live with – among – them. As one of them.” He took a deep breath. “That’s why I don’t know what to pack.”  
  
“Why not?” Sirius asked, staring at Remus intently. “You’re living among them. Pack what you need to live.”  
  
“I don’t know how they live,” Remus said, a slight desperate edge to his voice.  
  
Sirius had no idea what Remus meant, so he resorted to his own methods for packing when he didn’t want to leave Remus. “All right, we’ll go through a checklist. First things first. You need to get your toothbrush.” Remus did not move from the bed, and Sirius put a hand on his knee, squeezed, and said, “I’ll get it for you.”  
  
“Don’t,” Remus said, that desperate edge more pronounced. “I don’t think I’ll need it.”  
  
“What? No toothbrush? You’d best not expect me to kiss you when you come home.” Remus did not speak, and Sirius squeezed his knee again and said, “All right, I relent. I will kiss you, I promise.”  
  
“Sirius…”  
  
“What?”  
  
Remus made a helpless movement with his hands, and Sirius caught them and lowered his voice. “Moony, are you scared of this?” He put a hand up and smoothed Remus’s fringe. “You can tell me. I’ve been terrified of some of the things I’ve had to do.”  
  
Remus stared at the floor as he said, “They aren’t like me, Sirius. They haven’t been to Hogwarts. They’re not witches and wizards. Most of them run with Greyback because their families turned them out after they were bitten.” He turned and met Sirius’s gaze. “They don’t even consider themselves human.”  
  
Sirius blinked, his hand frozen on Remus’s head. “How can… how can you possibly…”  
  
“I don’t know,” Remus said. He suddenly put his hand over his eyes and said in a muffled voice, “Look, can you make me a cup of tea? That would really help.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said. “Of course. Come to the kitchen with me?”  
  
“No, I’ll stay here.”  
  
Sirius hated to leave him, but he went into the kitchen and dug through their assortment of tea bags. He tipped hot water from his wand into a teacup and dropped in a tiny sachet of Earl Grey. “Do you want milk?” he called in the direction of the bedroom. There was no answer. “Remus?”  
  
“No, thank you!”  
  
Sirius picked up the cup and carried it into the bedroom. Remus was still sitting on the bed, his hand over his eyes. “Moony,” he said, feeling helpless, “Here’s your tea.”  
  
“I don’t want to go,” Remus said suddenly, taking his hand away and looking straight at Sirius. “Haven’t I given enough for the Order? How can he make me do this?” He accepted the cup of tea and set it on the floor without even looking at it. “What good can I possibly do? I’m not like they are.”  
  
“I know,” Sirius said, sitting down on the floor in front of Remus.  
  
“Fuck,” Remus said, swiping the back of his hand across his eyes. “I ought to do my duty and not complain about it.”  
  
“Look,” Sirius said suddenly. “I’ve got to go do something.”  
  
Remus gave him an unreadable look. “You’re leaving?”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Sirius said, leaning his head against Remus’s knee. “I forgot. It’s for the Order.”  
  
“Of course,” Remus said. Sirius looked up into his face, but Remus’s hand was back over his eyes. “For the Order.”  
  
“It won’t take long,” Sirius swore. “Go and see James and Lily.”  
  
“I don’t want to see them.”  
  
“For me,” Sirius said. “Please. I’ll feel better if you’re not alone.”  
  
Remus stood quickly and took Sirius’s hand, helping him to his feet. “How long will you be gone?”  
  
“Not long,” Sirius said again. He leaned in and kissed Remus slowly. For a long moment, Remus clung to him; then they broke apart and Remus stepped back as if burned. “I promise,” Sirius said, “I’ll come to the Potters’ as soon as I’m done.”  
  
Sirius watched Remus Floo dutifully to Godric’s Hollow, then pulled his robe back on and stepped out the door of the flat. He Apparated immediately after he was beyond their anti-Apparition wards, landing in front of Hogwarts’ front gates and straightening his robe.   
  
He marched up to the doors of the castle, through the grounds he knew so well, and opened them with a word known only to professors and certain members of the Order. He passed the Great Hall and the sounds and smells of hundreds of students enjoying their dinner swept over him; he ignored the temptation to look in and see the childhood he and Remus had left behind only half a year ago, and headed directly for the Headmaster’s Office.  
  
Once there, he knocked on Dumbledore’s door and wrenched it open without waiting for an answer. The old wizard sat at his desk, writing on a piece of parchment so long that it spilled off the edge of his desk and pooled in front of it. Sirius had worked himself into a rage during his walk across the grounds, and his hands shook as he waited for Dumbledore to lay down his quill.  
  
“Sirius,” he said eventually. He waved his wand and the parchment rolled up with a snap. “Is everything all right? I wasn’t expecting you.”  
  
“No,” Sirius said, “you weren’t. And no, everything is not all right.”  
  
Dumbledore sat up straighter. “I haven’t received any word--”  
  
Sirius cut him off. “How can you possibly send Remus to spy on the werewolves?”  
  
Dumbledore looked momentarily taken aback, and Sirius congratulated himself on shaking him. “Did he tell you--”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Dumbledore frowned, gave Sirius a scrutinizing look, and then nodded. “I should have expected that.”   
  
“You should have,” Sirius agreed, not completely sure what either of them meant. “And it’s utterly inhumane.”  
  
“Yet Remus accepted this mission--”  
  
“He accepted it because you gave it to him--”  
  
“And understands the dangers inherent--”  
  
“I should think that Remus understands the dangers of werewolves better than any of us--”  
  
“And yet--”  
  
“But you don’t care what happened to him, what happens to any of us--”  
  
“That is not--”  
  
“You don’t care,” Sirius continued, his voice shaking, “so long as you’ve got some good martyrs for your cause--”  
  
“Sirius--”  
  
“But we’re not like that, Remus and I, we’re not concerned with--”  
  
“Sirius!”  
  
“—with your stupid cause, with being martyrs, we’re not even concerned with Voldemort--”  
  
“Mr. Black!”  
  
Out of habit, Sirius sat down hard. A chair had magically appeared behind him, just as it always had when he came into this office as a student. Dumbledore continued to sit, but he looked displeased. “You’re not concerned with Voldemort?” he repeated.  
  
“Fuck Voldemort,” Sirius said, now thoroughly angry with himself for sitting. “He’s too big for us. Too abstract. Good and evil, who can contend with that? Maybe you can, I don’t know, but as for us, we’re just people. We’ve got a bit of both. Hopefully more good than evil, but there you have it. We’re just fighting because we care about other people.”  
  
Dumbledore sighed and said, “Sirius…”  
  
“Listen,” Sirius said. “I know what you said. ‘This is something that’s bigger than one person’.”  
  
“Yes,” Dumbledore began.  
  
“But at the same time,” Sirius pressed on, “the Order is made of individuals. If you ruin one of them by sending him on a mission that he dreads not because he doesn’t want to do his duty, not because he doesn’t want to win the war, but because it makes him feel worthless, less than human…” His voice trailed off; he was startled that he’d just articulated what had made him so angry in the first place.  
  
“Yes,” Dumbledore said again after a few seconds. “Yes, I see what you mean.”   
  
Sirius looked at him in surprise. “You do?”  
  
“I do,” Dumbledore repeated.   
  
“Oh.”  
  
Dumbledore smiled faintly and pulled a shorter piece of parchment across the desk to himself. “I’ll tell Remus that I’ve changed my mind and he doesn’t need to go on this mission.”  
  
“Right,” Sirius said. “Good. Don’t mention my name, please.”  
  
Dumbledore nodded. “Thank you for talking this over with me, Sirius.”  
  
Sirius nodded back, stood, and left without another word.

*******************************

  
  
  
“… and Greyback is now travelling with Death Eaters,” Remus concluded. “On a regular basis. For all I know, he may even have gotten the Mark.”  
  
Dumbledore leaned forward in his chair and regarded Remus through his fingers. “Do you think that the other werewolves see that as an extension of the rights Voldemort has promised to them?”  
  
Remus hesitated, then nodded. “I think so, yes.” He put a hand to his head and ran his fingers through his mostly-grey hair. “To be honest, I don’t know what there is to be done at this point.”  
  
“I think the best thing you can do is to return to more normal work for the Order,” Dumbledore said gently. “You took on this mission against my protests, Remus, and although I appreciate it greatly…”  
  
“It’s going nowhere?” Remus asked. The bitterness in his voice did not surprise him anymore; it had been seeping out more and more since June. “I can’t say that I see much point in it anymore.”  
  
There was a moment of silence. Then: “I have something to show you.” Remus watched Dumbledore stand and walk to a cabinet in the corner, opening the doors and drawing out a Penseive. “I promised him that I wouldn’t tell you he’d come to see me, but that was over fifteen years ago.”  
  
Remus knew immediately whom Dumbledore meant. His stomach dropped sharply and he dug the fingers of his left hand into the arm of his chair. “I don’t…”  
  
Dumbledore had brought the basin over to his desk. He raised his wand to his temple and caught sight of Remus’s face. “I thought you might want to see what he had to say.”  
  
Remus hesitated. He suddenly needed to see him again, to hear his voice, even if it he just a tiny figure in another man’s memory. “Please,” he began, unsure what he was asking for; then he stood and shook his head. “Save it for me. Maybe some other time.”  
  
Lowering his wand from his temple, Dumbledore said gently, “Whenever you want to see it, Remus, just tell me.”  
  
Remus nodded, mumbled his goodbyes, and fled. Outside the headmaster’s door, he stopped in the hallway, looked up and down the dark stone walls, and set off in the direction of Gryffindor Tower. He got halfway there, then froze, remembering that he did not know the password and could not get in, and at any rate, it was likely to be full of students. He ducked into an empty classroom and stood looking out the window over the snow-covered grounds for a long time. In the distance, he could make out the unruly trees at the edge of the Forest, raising their arms against the approaching winter dusk. He wanted to raise up his own arms, to stop the world from turning any further, to stop the children in the Tower from growing up and learning what it meant to be a soldier. He wondered if he had the power to save any of them by sacrificing himself.   
  
The sky had darkened to a point where the shadows at the edge of the Forest had become ambiguous, and might have been four animals racing into the night. A thin veil of snow had begun to grace the windowsill. Remus put his fingers to the freezing glass and whispered, “Later. I’ll ask him later. There will be time.”


End file.
